Sandboxie 5.17 is causing Excel 2016 to crash every time when using the data query editor (formerly Power Query) when I try to create a table query. I have lost so much time over this as it never occurred to me that Sandboxie c/would affect a program that was not being sandboxed! Ironically perhaps, often if I have a problem with a program crashing I try to see if it does the same when sandboxed.

I can tell you that with 5.17.1 it is ok, but I cannot spend any more time on this, eg going through the beta iterations. But this problem must not be allowed to escape into the next release issue; or my goose is cooked!!

If the problem is happening outside Sandboxie, then it is not Sandboxie related

The Sandboxie driver/Click to run stuff is loaded whatever, or isn't it? If regressing to 5.17.1 OR uninstalling Sandboxie (as the ONLY change) cures the problem, than IT IS Sandboxie related however much your logic says otherwise!

And I uninstalled and reinstalled Office 365 multiple times, including using the Microsoft "nuclear" remove tool, and also tried the 64bit version. And the behaviour is the same on my laptop - similar setup but different hardware/drivers and less software installed.

Thanks for the steps! I am getting the same crash in Excel 2016 (the application freezes and I have to kill it). I did not see anything from Sandboxie...However, I think there's something going on, since reverting to 5.17.2 or older allows for this feature to work.
I am not sure why this happening, but I have made the devs aware.

henryg wrote:It does appear to do so. How did SB affect a non-sandboxed program? Potential to do so for other programs?

The "Click 2 Run Service" which is part of the Office version you had is modified by SBIE in order to allow them to work 'together'. I don't know the details but it is one of the few things altered outside of a sandbox. From what I recall it seemed to be something of a milestone getting the C2R versions working alongside SBIE. It was an 'in high demand' option [so while I hate MS Office myself] thus I can understand why they wanted to get it working well together. However before they added some automation to the changes, when the C2R option was first added (for paid users) the service would have to be manually restarted by the user [or a reboot would be needed] for the changes to take effect or some jazz.

In short, unlike most things, SBIE actually makes changes to an un-sandboxed process ~ in this case ~ The C2R Service included with some versions of office. I can't actually think of another off the top of my head so it may very well be (currently) the only process it will touch outside of a sandbox.

Either way, it isn't blindly injecting everything outside of a sandbox so the potential to cause issues with other software like you saw here should remain low to non-existent.